Golda Meir: A Political Biography

743 Pages·2017·6.92 MB·English

by  Meron Medzini

Meron Medzini
GOLDA MEIR
A POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY
Meron Medzini
Golda Meir

Meron Medzini
Golda Meir
A Political Biography
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This book is based on the Hebrew original:
Meron Medzini
Golda: Biyografyah Poliṭit
Tel-Aviv: Yediot Aḥaronot: Sifrei Hemed, © 2008
ISBN 978-3-11-048734-3
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-049250-7
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-048979-8
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0
License, as of February 23, 2017. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by-nc-nd/3.0/.
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A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2008 Yediot Aḥaronot: Sifre ḥemed, published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0
License.
Cover Image: Golda Meir, © Yedioth Ahronoth Books and Chemed Books
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Preface to the English edition
This book originally appeared in Hebrew in 1990 under the name The Proud
Jewess—Golda Meir and the Vision of Israel. Published twelve years after her
death, it was based on sources that were available until the late 1980’s. In those
days many controversial and delicate items were still subject to censorship.
Israel’s population at the time numbered some five million souls. It was clear that
there was a lack of a broad historic perspective to evaluate properly the life and
work of Golda Meir as a major figure that was the product of the Jewish commu-
nity in Palestine during the Mandatory era and later the State of Israel. The first
Hebrew version was an attempt to portray the character of this amazing personal-
ity that at the time seemed to have been forgotten in Israel, although less abroad
where she remained as a much better known figure.
Thirty years after her death and some twenty years after the appearance of
the first version of this biography, my publisher thought the time had come to up-
date the original biography with newly published and opened sources that were
unavailable earlier. Many diplomatic and military documents that were hidden in
archives in various countries were now opened. Israel’s population had grown to
seven million, among them a million Russian Jews who immigrated to Israel from
the former Soviet Union in the last decade of the twentieth century. Many of them
showed much interest in this woman who lit the torch that led to the opening of
the gates and to their immigration to Israel. Many of the younger generation that
grew up in Israel since Golda died in 1978 wondered about her role in the recent
history of the country, and specifically her responsibility for and her role during
the Yom Kippur War, and asked whether what they heard of her was the full and
final historic judgment. The second Hebrew version attempted to confront this
major chapter in her life.
The younger generation that has grown up in Israel in the almost forty years
after her death experienced leaders of another type, maybe some whose “ratings”
were higher than hers, in their much better command of Hebrew, in their political
and military experience. But it is not hard to argue that apart from Menachem
Begin, Yitzhak Rabin in his second term as prime minister and Ariel Sharon,
none of her other successors surpassed her in leadership capability, in under-
standing of the international and regional realities and mainly in her honesty
and integrity, her adherence to her principles and values, her stubbornness and
her patience in sticking to her truth. In certain ways she reminds Israelis of an-
other prime minister who in recent years is being more fully appreciated—Yitzhak
Shamir (1915–2011). Perhaps Begin and Rabin had a greater vision than she, but
this never detracted from her ability to lead Israel during five critical years in its
history and to serve as the supreme commander during the Yom Kippur War.
DOI 10.1515/9783110492507-202, © 2008 Yediot Aḥaronot: Sifreḥemed, published by
De Gruyter Oldenbourg. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivs 3.0 License. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
VI   Preface to the English edition
Regrettably, many young Israelis display much ignorance regarding their
past leaders. Ben-Gurion is an airport, Begin is a major highway in Jerusalem,
there are Eshkol streets and neighborhoods in various places in Israel, a theater
and opera performing center in Tel Aviv and a highway in Jerusalem are named
after Golda. Their faces adorn Israel’s currency. When the first edition of the
Hebrew version of this book was published it was intended to my four children
and their generation. The second Hebrew edition was intended for them and my
eight grandchildren so they should know who was Golda Meir, what she did and
what was her place in their history of their land.
The English version will hopefully be read by two additional grandchildren
in Israel and by their generation overseas. By now Israel’s population is over
eight million people. Regrettably, some of Golda’s successors as prime ministers
of Israel have been the subject of police investigations, one of them even went
to prison in 2016 for corruption charges. This led many Israelis to wonder about
the character of those who preceded the native-born Israeli prime ministers who
happily were never interrogated by the Israeli police. This led to a growing inter-
est in the founding fathers and one mother of Israel, both in Israel and overseas.
Testimony to this claim lies in the growing number of biographies written in re-
cent years in Israel and overseas on Ben-Gurion, Sharett, Eshkol, Rabin, Peres,
Shamir, Barak, Sharon and even Netanyahu. One major biography was written
on Golda in Hebrew and five in English, two even in French. This English ver-
sion contains a great deal of new material from sources that appeared in the past
twenty years as a result of the opening up of archives in Jerusalem, Washington,
London, Paris and even Moscow.
It can be safely claimed that many of the earlier assessments of Golda that
appeared in Israel were mostly negative. Now it can be argued that there is a new
evaluation based on newly opened archives. It demonstrates that she wanted
peace and did much to attain it, but she was always somber in her assessments.
Even after the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty in 1979, the Israel-Jordan
peace treaty in 1994 and the Oslo Process that began in 1993, the recognition
of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the acceptance of the two-states
principle, there are a lot of doubts if these historic events will be those that will
bring about a total peace between Israel and its neighbors. It is difficult to argue
with what Golda had written in her memoirs “My Life” in 1975: that the Arab and
Moslem world has not yet accepted the idea of the existence of a Jewish, Zionist,
independent, sovereign state in the heart of the Middle East. Perhaps this will
take many more years and Israel must be prepared for every eventuality. She also
said: “I believe we shall have peace with our neighbors, but I am certain that no
one will make peace with a weak Israel, if Israel will not be strong, there will be
no peace”. She then added: “We shall be able to live here only if we will be ready
Preface to the English edition   VII
to fight. Our neighbors will not be that charitable to grant us peace”. These words
seem to be valid in 2017.
I am grateful to many who assisted in the funding for the preparation and
research that went into this book. Among them are the Leonard Davis Institute
of International Relations of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Memorial
Foundation for Jewish Culture in New York, the Golda Meir Association headed
then by Yehudit Ronen-Reifen. I am also grateful for the assistance given by
the Israel Government Archives in Jerusalem, the Central Zionist Archives in
Jerusalem, the Pinchas Lavon Labor Movement Archives in Tel Aviv and the Na-
tional Archives of the United States. I am also grateful to Julia Brauch, Monika
Pfleghar and their teams at De Gruyter for initiating this project and seeing it to its
completion, and to Cordula Hubert for her meticulous editing of the English text.
For the sake of full and proper disclosure, I knew Golda Meir since my early
childhood and had the privilege of serving in the Office of the Prime Minister dur-
ing the years Golda served in that capacity as Director of the Israel Government
Press Office in Jerusalem and for a time as Spokesman of the Prime Minister’s
Bureau (1973–1974). My late mother Regina Hamburger-Medzini was probably
Golda’s closest friend from the time they met in the second grade of Public School
4 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1906 until Golda’s death seventy-two years later.
She was also in the small group that immigrated to Israel in 1921. My mother was
an important source for the early years. Over the years I have spoken with scores
of people, who knew and worked with Golda in her various capacities. Some were
members of her family, close friends and colleagues. Most of them preferred to
remain anonymous and I respect their wish. All of them shared with me their
recollections, directed me to sources and enlightened me with their evaluations.
I must also thank hundreds of my students at the Rothberg International School
of the Hebrew University where I have been teaching a course on Israel’s foreign
relations in the past forty-five years. They helped me to better understand many
events and processes. My family bore with much patience the burden involved in
the preparation of two Hebrew and one English versions. Responsibility for the
final product rests of course with me.
Meron Medzini
Jerusalem 2017

Table of Content
Preface to the English edition   V
Prologue   XI
1 Origins (1898–1906)   1
2 Milwaukee (1906–1921)   10
3 Merhavia (1921–1925)   25
4 Jerusalem (1925–1928)   41
5 Apprenticeship (1928–1939)   48
6 War and Holocaust (1939–1945)   80
7 Towards Independence (1945–1948)   103
8 My Friends, We Are at War (1947–1948)   142
9 Interlude in Moscow (1948–1949)   173
10 The Seven Good Years (1949–1956)   203
11 Ben-Gurion Commands (1953–1956)   226
12 The Sinai War (1956–1957)   256
13 Madam Foreign Minister (1957–1965)   291
14 Ben-Gurion Must Go (1956–1966)   359
15 The Secretary General (1966–1968)   391
16 Madam Prime Minister (1969–1973)   443
17 Into the Abyss (1973)   536